Mayor Ed Lee: Mid-Market set for “total resurgence”

Mayor Ed Lee tours the roof top garden under construction at what will become Twitter's new headquarters at 10th and Market Streets. Cranes in the background for a once-stalled mixed use development across the street are now hard at work. (Photo by Sarah Rice / The Chronicle).

Mid-Market has been a bugbear of San Francisco mayors for decades, but the city is finally on the cusp of turning around the long-depressed stretch of the city’s grand boulevard, Mayor Ed Lee said Thursday.

“I think you’re seeing a total resurgence,” Lee said as he toured renovations of the old Merchandise Mart at 10th and Market streets being transformed into new headquarters for tech companies Twitter, Yammer and CallSocket and home decor web site One Kings Lane. “It’s exciting to see this milestone.”

A tax break approved last year for companies that expand their workforce in the Mid-Market area was central to keeping Twitter headquartered in San Francisco. Ali Rowghani, the company’s chief financial officer, said they will have “well north of 1,000” workers worldwide when they move into their new San Francisco home this summer.

Twitter has estimated that they can grow to more than 2,600 jobs in the next five years at their new Mid-Market location, according to the mayor’s office. The company currently has leases on the top three floors – about 200,000 square feet – of what is now being called Market Square. It also has options to lease two more floors.

All told, the 1.1 million-square-foot pair of buildings being renovated by Shorenstein Properties is expected to include offices, at least 55,000 square feet of retail space and a full-service grocery store, something the area is in dire need of.

“Demand and the demographics are clearly here,” said Doug Shorenstein, chairman and chief executive officer of the real estate investment and development firm. “It’s not a done deal, but we have multiple (grocery companies) that are interested.”

Twitter is expected to move in this summer and serve as an anchor that will attract smaller businesses. Other tech companies like Zendesk have already moved in nearby. The prospect has jumpstarted approved housing projects in the area that had lain dormant. Arts programs and some small businesses flowing to the neighborhood — an American Conservatory Theater expansion, Dottie’s True Blue Café, Huckleberry Bicycles — round out the picture, the mayor’s administration says.